O livro no "chão" é impresso com todos os salmos. Um talismã!The book on the "floor" is a printed one with all the psalms. Precious!

Você notou o plano de fundo da foto? Bem, eu peguei uns recortes de papelão que vêm como suporte de fascículos - eu "coleciono" eles, nunca jogo fora! - e usei um tutorial que vi no miniature.about.com sobre como fazer um cenário para fotografar suas miniaturas. Então eu fiz este... O painel na parede eu já sabia fazer, mas tem um tutorial muito bom na Dada's dollhouse. Não vou mostrar mais fotos agora porque você vai ver ele várias vezes aqui... :)Did you notice the background of that picture? Well, I took some corrugated cardboard sheets I've been "collecting" - they usually come with some magazines to keep them from bending when they have some item with them - and I followed a tutorial on miniatures.about.com on how to make a background for your pictures. So I made this one... I already knew how to make the wall paneling, but there is a great tutorial on Dada's dollhouse blog on it. I won't show more pictures of it because you'll be seeing it very often here... :)Este é o cenário visto por baixo e por trás:This is the back & bottom of the structure:

Para minha surpresa, até que ficou bem firme!Surprisingly, it turned out very sturdy!Eu até que tenho muitos UFOs (um trocadilho em inglês com a sigla para OVNIs, mas que significa Objetos Inacabados) e projetos que nem comecei ainda para trabalhar pelos próximos 20 anos... mas mesmo antes de eu ter escolhido um, uma amiga miniaturista aqui no Brasil me propôs uma troquinha e eu topei na hora, porque ela é muito talentosa. É a Adriana Oliveira. Nós escolhemos mais ou menos o que queríamos, mas o que vamos mesmo receber uma da outra será uma completa surpresa. Acabei de terminar minha parte, mas não posso mostrar para vocês. Sabe como é, para não estragar a surpresa! :) Mas posso e vou mostrar alguns closes bem próximos e uma foto distorcida do que eu fiz. Se você conseguir adivinhar o que eu fiz para ela, ganhará o direito de fazer uma troquinha comigo também, se quiser! :D Não se preocupe, você pode decidir se quer fazer uma troquinha ou não depois que eu revelar o que fiz, mas tem que tentar adivinhar aqui, nesta postagem, ok? ;)I do have many UFOs (UnFinished Objects) and NESOs (Not Even Started Objects) to tackle next (and for the next 20 years, it seems...), but even before I could pick one, I was contacted by a friend and miniaturist here in Brazil, Adriana Oliveira, for a one-to-one swap. Each one of us could choose more or less what we wanted, but it'll still be a surprise. I have just finished mine, but I cannot show you. You know, not to spoil her surprise! :) But I can and will show you some extreme close-ups and distorted pictures of what I did. If you can guess what I made for her, you'll earn the right to swap with me too, if you want! :D Don't worry, you can decide if you really want to after I reveal what I made for her, later on. But the guess has to be made now, on this post, ok? ;)

sábado, 8 de dezembro de 2012

No mês passado recebi um presente MUITO especial!!! Sheila Cristina, uma miniaturista do Pará para quem eu tinha feito um jogo de sofá de presente, que sempre acompanha as novidades do DHB e aqui, e ainda por cima é especialista em novinhos de topo de bolo bem realistas, quis fazer uma miniatura minha. Bem, eu não facilitei o trabalho dela, pois detesto tirar fotos minhas, hehe... Só mandei uma foto, já antiga... Mas queria muito ter miniaturas de meus 'filhos', o Garotão, um cão de 18 anos que adotei da rua aos 6 anos e Bianca, minha gata também adotada, que virou estrelinha em novembro do ano passado, aos 17 1/2 de idade, uma senhora!Last month I got a VERY special gift!!! Sheila Cristina, a miniaturist from Belém, Para (North of Brazil), a faithful follower of DHB and my personal blog (this very one...), happens to be a specialist in creating miniature sculptures of bride & grooms for top-of-the-cake. I made her a sofa set in 1:24 and, in return, she decided to make a mini version of me... :) I didn't make her work easy at all, as I absolutely hate to be in pictures, so I didn't have any good ones to send her so she could base her work on. Only a very old one... But I was very fond of the idea of having miniatures of my 'furry children', Garotão (Big Boy), a 18-years-old dog I adopted when he was 6 (he had been abandoned on the streets by his previous owner's family, after he died) and Bianca, a cat I also adopted but that has already crossed the Rainbow Bridge in November 2011, at the age of 17 1/2.

E quando o presente chegou, fiquei absolutamente maravilhada! Até minha mãe viu a semelhança. E ainda ganhei uma mesa com mini-dollhouses em andamento, que lindo!!! Bem, um presente desses merecia um cenário próprio, claro... Eu não tinha nada que coubesse, pois estão na escala 1:6 (mais adequada a noivos de topo de bolo, a especialidade da Sheila).When that special gift arrived, I was in awe! Even my mother could see the resemblance. And I also got a mini-desk with mini-dollhouses in progress, so beautiful!!! Well, such a great gift deserves nothing less than a setting of its own, of course... I didn't have any roombox that would fit them, as they are in 1:6 or playscale (which fits better for her work)

A mini-eu com a 'Bianca' no colo...Mini-me with 'Bianca' in her arms...

What about the flooring?... Well, for the floor I decided to try a technique I read about a long time ago and I had even recommended it to other people: parquet flooring using popsicle sticks! They are very inexpensive, as one bag with about 50 of them costs less then 50 cents (of a dollar).

Well, I can assure you I'll NEVER again recommend this technique!... hahaha... The final effect is beautiful, but...

the sticks come in different thickness and width, a nightmare for achieving a perfect finishing and fitting (I'm pretty picky about this)

they are extremely rough. So bad I'm not sure I'd ever use them for their intended purpose (holding popsicles which are to be put in the mouth! Tell me about splinters!...)

the wood they're made of, though easily breakable, is really HARD to saw (perpendicular to the vein), which is necessary to obtain the pieces in the right size. I could only manage to do that using my dremel tool. As I had to cut many of them, I improvised a cutting jig, but I hated working with that wood...

Their size is ideal for 1:6, as this setting proves it... NOT good for 1:12!!!

it was A LOT of work to sand them after glued in place, in order to make them even (level 'down'). It took me 3 days of hard work and manual sanding. I think that an orbital sander will make it to the list I'm sending to Santa this year, lol...

Dá para ver como fica irregular na altura. E os espaços entre os 'tacos'! (preenchi com cola e pó de serragem)You can see the different 'heights' of the wood pieces and the spaces between them (I filled those with a mix of glue and sawdust).

Another interesting detail is that I had one of those cheap LED flashlights 'Made in China', the kind that uses small round coin batteries. I took it all apart, extended the wiring (had to use soldering iron here) and a micro-switch I bought online from an electronics store for $0.50 each. I used my dremel again to create some grooving where I'd fit the (round) wires, so that they wouldn't show beneath the wallpaper. The light fixture on the ceiling is actually the top of the flashlight itself... The postal package on the floor symbolizes the one that brought me the actual gift AND also hides the batteries!...

And as if that wasn't enough, to my greatest pleasure, another wonderful surprise: yesterday I got yet another gift, from my dear friend Edi Oliveira, a super-talented miniaturist who makes GORGEOUS orchids, out of cold porcelain. I LOVED it!!! How did she guess that my favorite color IS lavender???? (the actual color doesn't show well in the picture, though). I think she should open an online store and sell her OOAK creations to the world, don't you think? :)